Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

Review\n"An outstanding, epic history of the fall of the Roman Empire and rise of the European West."―Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard\n"A remarkable book."―Peter Brown, New York Review of Books\n"Scheidel marshals his facts with verve and force."―Robert Colvile, The Times\n"Makes a bracing case. . . . What did the Romans do for us? Scheidel does not give the usual answers."―Peter Stothard, Financial Times\n"Escape from Rome deserves to be taken very seriously. . . . This is a fiercely intelligent, closely argued book."―Peter Thonemann, Times Literary Supplement\nThe gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern world\nThe fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world? In an absorbing narrative that begins with ancient Rome but stretches far beyond it, from Byzantium to China and from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Scheidel shows how the demise of Rome and the enduring failure of empire-building on European soil launched an economic transformation that changed the continent and ultimately the world.